Folks with adblocking and internet security software, can you help me out by letting me know 1) if your software blocks a site 2) what software it is 3) why. That why is the tricky part!

The site ad-rag.com gets blocked by Norton Internet Security and from reading their site I found out that it was the "ad-" part that gets it blocked. That is, the letter-combo ad plus dash. Now I found out that FiltersetG (adblock) also blocks the site much like NIS (no images, no deep links), but asking in their forums here, I don't know if it is the addash part that screwing things up again.
I know plenty of sites like mine that live on "ad" URL's without dashes, that don't get blocked so I wonder is it the dash that's screwing me, and if so, how many different adblocking/security things block ad-rag.com due to the dash.
My site is listed in my profile. I'm considering moving domains, but it would be pointless if "ad" is the combo that gets blocked, rather than addash so could you check adfreak.com or someone like that as well? Thanks so much in advance!

The very long regular expression which is blocking ad-rag.com in FiltersetG (I haven't quite been able to pin down which part of it is matching your URLs yet) is not blocking http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/, which is what adfreak.com redirects to.

I'll see if I can work out what part of that regular expression is working on your site, though, because now I'm curious.posted by hades at 1:24 AM on March 29, 2006

another "ad" url to try then (which doesn't redirect, sorry I didn't realise): adjab.posted by dabitch at 2:10 AM on March 29, 2006

The Filterset.G regexp that blocks your images is a monstrous bloody thing. Here it is busted up a bit and annotated:

/[^a-z\d=+%@](?!\d{5,})any non-(alpha, digit, =+%@) not followed by 5 or more digits(\w*\d+x\d)?optionally followed by optional whitespace, some digits, an x and another digit\d*optionally followed by any number of digits(show)?optionally followed by "show"(optionally followed by \w{3,}%20at least three whitespace characters and "%20" |alligator|avs|barter|blog|boxor any of these |central|context|crystal|d?html |exchange|external|forum|front |fuse|gen|get|house|hover|http |i?frame|inline|instant|live|main |mspace|net|partner|php|popin|primary |provider|realtext|redir\W.*\W |rotated?|secure|side|smart|sponsor |story|text|view|web)?_?optionally followed by an underscoreadfollowed by "ad"s?optionally followed by "s"(optionally followed by v?an optional v followed by ( bot|brite|broker|bureau|butlerany of these |cent(er|ric)|click|client|content |coun(cil|t(er)?)|creative|cycle |data(id)?|engage|entry |er( tis\w+ |t(pro)? |ve?r? ) |farm|force|form|frame(generator)? |gen|gif|groupid|head|ima?ge? |index|info|js|juggler|layer |legend|link|log|man(ager)? |max|mentor(serve)?|meta\.com |net|optimi[sz]er|parser|peeps |pic|po(ol|pup|sition)|proof |q\.nextag|re(dire?c?t?|mote|volver) |rom\.net|rotator|sale|script|sdk |sfac|size|so(lution|nar|urce) |stream|space|srv|stat.*\.asp |sys|(tag)?track|trix|type|view |vt|x\.nu|zone ))?s?optionally followed by "s"\d*optionally followed by digits(status)?optionally followed by "status"\d*(?!\.org)followed by optional digits not followed by ".org"[\W_]followed by a non-alpha non-digit that's (?!not followed by \w+\.(ac\.|edu)whitespace plus ".ac." or ".edu" |astra|aware|adurl=|block|loginor any of these |nl\/|sears\/ |.*(&sbc|\.(wmv|rm)) )/

Get rid of all the optional stuff and we have

/[^a-z\d=+%@](?!\d{5,})any non-(alpha, digit, =+%@) not followed by 5 or more digitsadfollowed by "ad"[\W_]followed by a non-alpha non-digit that's (?!not followed by \w+\.(ac\.|edu)whitespace plus ".ac." or ".edu" |astra|aware|adurl=|block|loginor any of these |nl\/|sears\/ |.*(&sbc|\.(wmv|rm)) )/

You're at http://ad-rag.com, which contains a non-alpha, non-digit, non-=+%@ (the second slash) not followed by 5 or more digits, followed by "ad", followed by a non-alpha non-digit (the "-") that's not followed by any of that other stuff. So to unblock yourself, you need to persuade G to put "|rag\." right before "|sears".

Your site is also blocked by default in privoxy. The stock default action file is here. The rule that matches "adfreak.com" is "ad*.".posted by Rhomboid at 6:16 AM on March 29, 2006

Your site works fine with Safari+PithHelmet and the default ruleset.posted by majick at 7:11 AM on March 29, 2006

it works fine with opera 8.X and opera 9

i recomend getting a browser with built ad-blocking, as they tend to be more intelligent than the third party software (and use less resources)posted by I_am_jesus at 7:16 AM on March 29, 2006

I_am_jesus:
I suspect that dabitch wants to unblock the site for other browsers than herself, as she wants to increase readership. Hence consideration of the domain move. It's not really about which browser she uses, or her [potential] readers use. It's about unintelligent 'internet security' programs.posted by dash_slot- at 7:58 AM on March 29, 2006

Blarg. In the annotations above, kindly substitute "alphanumeric or underscore" for every occurrence of "whitespace".

Dabitch, if you make your site www.ad-rag.com instead of just plain ad-rag.com, I expect you'll run foul of fewer blockers. I notice you're already redirecting from there - could you try redirecting the other way around for a while and see what happens?posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on March 29, 2006

Scratch that, for Filterset.G anyway. The first . in http://www.ad-rag.com is every bit as much a non-alpha, non-digit, non-=+%@ as the second / is, so the rule will still match.

My edited rule does work, though, and I've posted the recipe on G's forum.posted by flabdablet at 8:35 AM on March 29, 2006

flabdablet you da man! And dash_slot is pretty much on the money. After many years of helping the "help! your site just vanished ....and I just installed NIS" people, I see now that other newer adblockers screw up the site as well... I'm contemplating switching over to either adrag.com or commercial-archive.com - "adrag" would obviously be a useless move if it's the "ad" bit that gets stuck in the adblockers.

Can't just test it on the fly for a few days as I'll need to buy a working ssl cert for the domain.

Hence the polling on adblocking software. you've been super help so far. Some guy claims the site won't work in firefox on his windows machine, he has no special plugins. I suspect an internet security type problem there as well.posted by dabitch at 9:39 AM on March 29, 2006

...aargh, I lost a "right" before "on the money".posted by dabitch at 9:45 AM on March 29, 2006

Your site has never worked properly for me in FF (no images) even though I can access mad, ipa, adrants etc without problem. Now I've discovered its my fault I take back all the curses I cast upon your designers... Great site, BTWposted by blag at 2:16 PM on March 29, 2006

thanks blag and I'm the designer so you cursed at me. I'm used to it tho. ;). See that's the thing, people think it's the sites fault. arrrgh! *pulls hair*posted by dabitch at 2:53 PM on March 29, 2006

FOLLOW UP

In the off-chance anyone is still reading this or stumbling on to it while looking for similar info here's what I eneded up doing in order to get out of the adblock-situations I was on.

I changed domains. Quick and dirty fix, and it works. Thanks for all the input guys!posted by dabitch at 12:27 PM on April 28, 2006

Tags

Share

About Ask MetaFilter

Ask MetaFilter is a question and answer site that covers nearly any question on earth, where members help each other solve problems. Ask MetaFilter is where thousands of life's little questions are answered.